More Brown Fallout
Now that we're two weeks past the Belmont Stakes, the "blame game" has settled down because there are other distractions taking people's attention.
It didn't take long for the owner to blame the trainer; the trainer to blame the jockey; and the jockey blamed the weather, and, and, and.......
Big Brown's connections have pointed him to the Haskell Handicap at Monmouth Park on August 3rd. Michael Iavarone of IEAH Stables said: "We'll race in the Haskell because Saratoga is so hot & humid and Monmouth being on the Jersey Shore is a lot cooler". Puhleeeze. The Haskell generally turns out to be a "stand out" horse racing against a few Monmouth regulars--with maybe another or two legitimate contenders coming down. It is not what the Haskell used to be. I'll get some heat for this; but, in my mind, the Haskell should be downgraded in class. It truly is not a Grade 1 stake race. Owner Iavarone may not have been to Monmouth too many times during a heat wave. It can be just as oppressive--perhaps even more so than Saratoga.
A few facts are clear: Except for his 1st race,
Big Brown miraculously drew the outside post in his races except for the Belmont. The horse was hard to rate needing to be on or close to the lead--in the clear. This meant the horse always raced wide (in the 3 or 4 path) and never, ever took turns well--always veering to the outside. You never saw
Big Brown race along the rail. That's a training issue and it cost the horse plenty on June 7th. In addition, the fact that the horse had not been administered his steroid, Winstrol, had to have something to do with his form reversal. Finally, let's not forget that up until June 7th, the warmest day had gotten to 80 degrees with low humidity. On Friday, June 6th, the weather was showery and the high temperature was 67 degrees. On Belmont day, the high temperature was a record-breaking 96 degrees with oppressive humidity. Some animals, like humans, have a hard time quickly acclimating to that type of temperature change. Case closed.
Now we move on to see if in the Haskell,
Big Brown can prove the Belmont was a fluke--or not.
May the horse be with you!
Racetrack Lenny
The Agony of De-Feet
The racing gods do not like owners/trainers that like to brag and consider a victory a "foregone conclusion". The IEAH Stable and Dick Dutrow are having a dish of crow today...a dish best served cold.
For as much as racing fans wanted to see a Triple Crown yesterday, they were sorely disappointed when
Big Brown threw in an absolute clunker of a race in finishing last in the Belmont Stakes. He was eased in the stretch by jockey Kent Desormeaux and in the official chart of the race, they couldn't estimate how many lengths
Big Brown lost by--one word said it all: "distanced".
The headline award goes to New York
Newsday which read: "Burned At The Stakes". In my 37 consecutive years of going to the Belmont, I can't remember the last time the weather was as hot, humid and oppressive as it was yesterday. There was no way to get cool and you needed to drink a lot of water because sweat just poured off you even sitting still. With spring temperatures having been cooler than normal right up until Friday (when the high as 63), the emergence of the "dog days of August" on June 7th may have proven to be
Big Brown's undoing.
Even though
Big Brown had suffered a quarter crack to his hoof, the crack was healing nicely and his handlers applied an acrylic patch to make sure the crack didn't get worse or that dirt would get into the crack. I really would like to believe that the owners/trainers would not have risked their horse if they didn't think he was 100%. Why? Because they already have a $50 MILLION stud deal and they were not going to mess around with risking that money by having their horse get hurt.
On paper, the only horse that was going to give
Big Brown a run for the money was
Casino Drive the Japanese import who ran a huge race in Belmont's Peter Pan stakes 3 weeks ago.
Casino Drive showed a Beyer speed rating of 107 which is right up there with
Big Brown. Casino Drive's jockey in the Peter Pan was none other than
Big Brown's rider, Kent Desormeaux. Desormeaux had publicly stated that that was the one horse he feared.
Earlier this week,
Casino Drive must have stepped on a stone or some other hard object and bruised his left rear hoof. The owner/trainer monitored the bruise and the bruise was showing heat--an indication of a possible infection. They began treating the horse with antibiotics; but, the trainer/owner did not think it wise to run
Casino Drive at anything less than 100% so as to avoid any injury or discomfort to the horse. In major stake races, trainers have up to 4 hours before post time to call the track stewards and racing secretary to declare the scratch. Up until the scratch got announced yesterday,
Casino Drive was a solid 9/2 second choice in the wagering. When they announced the scratch at the track, it literally had the audience gasp. They had wanted to see the test between the two horses; but, it was not to be. My hat goes off to
Casino Drive's owner and trainer for making the right call in doing what was right by the horse instead of opting to take any chances. Believe me, they had to be bitterly disappointed because they traveled 7,000 miles from Tokyo pointing
Casino Drive to the Belmont. I hope they decide to keep him in the U.S. and have him run in some of the summer classics at Saratoga.
With the scratch of
Casino Drive, there wasn't a person at the track that didn't think
Big Brown would be wearing the crown. Why? The lone speed in the race was an animal named
Da'Tara who had finished 2nd in the Barbaro Stakes at Pimlico on May 17th and earned his best speed figure yet--a 92. A 92 speed rating versus
Big Brown's 114 would mean
Da'Tara would be in the 212 area code while
Big Brown was in the 516 area code. It wouldn't even be close. The rest of the field were a bunch of plodders--all closers who would all try to pass the "front runners" at the end. Of all the closers, the only horse you could really make a case for an upset was
Denis of Cork. Big Brown got sent off at a generous 30 cents to the dollar. With the scratch of
Casino Drive, Denis of Cork became the 7-1 second choice. A few surprises in the wagering:
Tale of Ekati got sent off as the 3rd betting choice at 14-1 having had 2 victories at Belmont Park. He was the "horse for the course". The closers out of the Preakness-
Macho Again and
Icabad Crane were both sent off at 17-1. The Belmont also drew a maiden horse-
Guadalcanal who should have been 1,000-1 and somehow was sent off at 25-1. The controlling speed in the race,
Da'Tara got dismissed as the longest shot in the field at 38-1.
In the post parade, the fans were wildly cheering
Big Brown and Kent Desormeaux acknowledged the applause with a wave of his hand.
Big Brown looked pretty relaxed to me and I thought he so outclassed his competition that the question would be how many lengths he would win by. When the gate opened,
Da'Tara came out like a shot out of a cannon and immediately went to the front.
Big Brown at the rail got away second as
Tale of Ekati came away third. Kent Desormeaux let
Tale of Ekati overtake him and get into 2nd position in order for Desormeaux to get
Big Brown out into the clear in the 3 or 4 path off the rail--his customary position. As the field circled the clubhouse turn and made its way onto the long Belmont backstretch,
Da'Tara had established a tenuous one length lead with
Tale of Ekati 2nd by a length and
Big Brown settled into 3rd just biding his time. There was a gap of 5 lengths to the plodding
Anak Nakal and then a gap of a dozen lengths to the other 5 closers with
Denis of Cork being the last of them all.
The fractions for the race were sensible. 23-4/5ths for the opening quarter and 48-1/5th for the half mile. The field raced this way until the far turn. At that point,
Da'Tara was still in front and had now opened up by 2 lengths and you could see that
Tale of Ekati was starting to struggle to keep pace.
Big Brown was still on the far outside and fans were wondering when would Kent Desormeaux say "go". However, you could see on the infield screen how hard Kent Desormeaux was hand-urging
Big Brown to go and
Big Brown was just throwing his head left and right fighting his jockey's instructions. At that point, I turned to my 3 friends Les, Jerry and Kyle and told them- no Triple Crown today. Belmont's track announcer Tom Durkin said it all when he said
"Big Brown is laboring and is not responding". The crowd was now getting silent. The unthinkable was about to happen.
Big Brown was not only going to lose, he was going to lose big.
At the top of the stretch, jockey Alan Garcia opened up 5 lengths with
Da'Tara who had plenty left in the tank given the sensible pace for the mile and a half race.
Anak Nakal had momentarily taken 2nd with
Macho Again looming on the outside 3rd and then a gap of about 6 lengths and
Denis of Cork had re-connected with the field and was coming up the rail 4th.
Big Brown went very, very wide on the turn and was now 5th and dropping back steadily. Kent Desormeaux did the right thing and began to ease the horse as there was no point going to the whip. Why abuse the horse when it's crystal clear he isn't going to win? I applaud Kent for being kind because he could have used the whip out of frustration that he would not win the Triple Crown. Desormeaux showed real class.
At the finish,
Da'Tara was still in front by 5 lengths but he was drifting to the middle of the track, a sure sign of a tired horse; however, he struggled across the finish line 1st and win the 140th Belmont in 2:29-3/5ths--one of the slowest Belmont Stakes in history.
Denis of Cork took 2nd by 3 lengths while
Anak Nakal and
Ready's Echo dead-heated for 3rd. The crowd was in shock. The impossible had happened.
Big Brown got soundly beaten--by a field he should have totally dominated. What went wrong?
My theory is the horse did not react well to the heat and humidity. Some horses relish the heat; others don't. Was the hoof an issue? Maybe; but, it seemed like
Big Brown was jogging fine which he couldn't do if he were lame. When
Big Brown struggled to the finish line last, you could see he was "lathered up" which is a tell-tale sign of a horse who has spent a lot of energy. Obviously, something went wrong because his performance was such a reversal of form that it was just too bad to be true. While there had been some question as to whether he could get the mile and a half distance, the field he was facing was so inferior that even a tiring
Big Brown would still win.
Owners and trainer will go over every inch of the horse to determine what went wrong; but, I think 96 degrees, high humidity and no so much as a breeze yesterday proved to be
Big Brown's undoing.
Well, history got made...not the kind you want to see. So, we now go into the 31st year of a Triple Crown drought and we'll start seeing which 2 year old begins racing at Saratoga this summer might become the next contestant for the Triple Crown.
Until next time,
Racetrack Lenny
Triple Crown
I really do want to see a Triple Crown-we've waited 30 years, I just wish trainer Rich Dutrow wasn't such a bumptious braggart! Poor Big Brown having to listen to Dutrow's blathering.
Oh well, you will not pay your kids' college tuition betting on Big Brown who already is 1-9 in the wagering. With the hoof problem and hot, humid weather, we'll see if we can make a few bucks.
I'll box Denis of Cork, Macho Again and Tale of Ekati in an exacta and triple box. I will also put those 3 horses underneath Big Brown in an exacta as a "saver wager". Any exacta with Big Brown on top will pay peanuts. In the early wagering, a Big Brown/Casino Drive exacta would pay $3.20. Doesn't that get your motor running? NOT. Another saver bet is $2 show on each horse and hope Big Brown runs 4th or worse. That would guarantee triple-digit show prices. That would cost $18. If Big Brown wins or finishes in the money, you'll get back $6.30- so, not a total loss.
Let's see if history gets made.
May the horse be with you,
Racetrack Lenny
